My sister and I followed Telesphore’s route toward the rear of the great house. Tessie Roman appeared at our side as we hurried along. We could hear the sounds of shouting getting louder as we went.
“He loses all control when he drinks,” Tessie said, her voice half caught in her throat. “And when he’s trying to impress our father.”
“He’ll do neither if I have anything to say,” I said.
“Listen, Tessie, this is our one chance,” Martha whispered urgently. “If you want to come away with us, to help Mr. Bingham, it needs to be now, during the commotion. Do you ride?”
Tessie turned to her. “Of course.”
“Can you find the way to the Commerce levee through the dark? That’s the nearest steamer landing, isn’t it?”
“It’s about five miles west-northwest, and yes, I can get us there. More than likely, there’ll be a northbound packet leaving this evening.”
“Meet us at the levee, Joshua,” Martha said, “after you’ve done what you can.”
We were at the back door. Outside in the dark night, I could see several torches blazing and a scrum of bodies moving about.
“Go to our room and retrieve my purse,” I said. “Be quick about it. Then take both the horses to the levee. I’ll manage to get there on foot.”
“I’ve one thing to gather too,” said Tessie to Martha. “I’ll meet you back here, and we’ll ride together.” She hurried down a side corridor.
“Be safe,” Martha said as I gave her a quick embrace.
“You too.”
I took a deep breath and pushed open the back door.
An awful scene greeted me. In the clearing in front of the quarters, where the bonfire had burned the prior night, four wooden stakes had been driven into the ground in the shape of a rectangle. The young boy lay on his stomach amid them, his whole body shaking uncontrollably. His shirt had been ripped from his torso so that he was naked to the waist. Blood trickled from the soles of his feet where he’d been dragged across the remains of the broken wine bottle.
The boy’s legs were spread wide and each one was tied by a rope to one of the stakes. Pemberton was at work on his right arm, securing a rope tight around his wrist and pulling it roughly toward the nearest stake. When he tied down the other arm, the boy would embody a prostrate, helpless X in the center of the pegs. A pitifully easy target.
Meanwhile, Telesphore had shed his frockcoat, and he paced wildly about the clearing in his shirt-sleeves, shouting epithets at his victim. In his right arm, Telesphore brandished a long southwestern whip, ten feet of braided cowhide dangling from a weighted handle. Now and then he flicked his wrist, and the whip snapped and ripped open the air with an earsplitting crack.
A ring of Negroes had formed just outside the flickering circle of light cast by the flaming torches. They were silent and watchful.
I walked up to Telesphore, keeping a wary eye on his whip. I knew its sting would not discriminate by skin color. I put my hand on his shoulder, but immediately he shook free of my touch and stared at me, wide-eyed. Up close I could see he was sweating profusely. He gave off an odor of fierce desire.
“Take a breath,” I said. “Think a moment.”
“This is none of your concern,” he shot back.
“I agree with you, it’s not. If someone came onto my family’s plantation and ventured to tell me how to treat my stock, I’d give them one warning and then I’d strike them down.”
“Consider yourself warned,” Telesphore replied, although I could tell my approach had left him slightly off-balance.
“I’m not telling you how to treat him. I’m asking you to think.”
“There’s nothing to think about. The boy needs education.”
“He’s ready for you,” called Pemberton from behind me.
Telesphore took a long step toward the pegs and gave a great swing of his whip. His feet left the ground as he heaved his instrument forward with as much force as he could possibly manage.
The air exploded. The Negro boy screamed. A long, dark line erupted on his back where the whip had struck, and almost immediately blood oozed up and little droplets began seeping down his back. A muted intake of breath escaped from the slaves encircling us. Pemberton laughed mockingly, his ugly hooked nose seemingly aflame in the torchlight.
Off in the distance, I heard the faint rustling sound of horses moving through underbrush. I hoped everyone else was too preoccupied to pay it any notice.
Telesphore looked over at me with a defiant expression and I nodded. “You’re right,” I said. “I didn’t stop you. I told you I’m not here to tell you what to do—”
“Step out of my way then,” Telesphore said, his breath coming even faster now that he’d tasted the thrill of the first blow. “I’m just getting started, and I’ll not be responsible if you get struck by accident.”
“—but I will ask you to think. All these bondsmen gathered around are watching you carefully. They’d be foolhardy not to. They all know they’ll be subject to your dominion someday.”
“All the more reason to correct this boy for his error.”
Telesphore stepped forward and cracked his whip again. The boy screamed and writhed. His flesh shook. His body jerked about and twitched as much as the restraining ropes allowed—a terrible, involuntary dance. Large drops of blood rolled down his back and stained the packed, dark soil of the yard.
“Think how much more power you’ll have over all these head if you drop your whip now and walk away,” I said. Telesphore looked at me, his eyes a little wider.
“Not a single one of them doubts you could whip this boy until he passes out from the shock. Until he dies, even. No one doubts you could. I don’t. What do you prove to them by doing it?”
Telesphore glanced over my shoulder, and I turned and saw Jacques Roman standing in the open doorway, his arms folded across his chest.
“He doesn’t doubt it either,” I said more quietly.
“I don’t need to prove myself to him,” he said. “And certainly not to any of them.”
“You don’t,” I agreed. His breathing was starting to slow toward normal, and I thought perhaps I’d gotten him to turn the corner from emotion to reason.
“The correction we give is about educating them—all of them—that they must do exactly as we say,” Telesphore continued. “Even if it seems impossible. It’s about ensuring, if we say, ‘Pick two hundred pounds of cotton before you lay down your sack for the day,’ then they’ll pick two hundred that day. If we say ‘two hundred fifty,’ they’ll pick two hundred fifty. Whether or not it’s humanly possible, they’ll pick two hundred fifty. Because they know what’s coming otherwise.”
“Do you think they know that’s the law under your father’s rule?”
“I know they know it. That’s why his yield’s so good.”
“Do you think they know to fear you just as much as they fear him?”
He hesitated, but his grip on the whip handle loosened. There was no sound except for the continued moaning of the boy tied up among the pegs.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” I continued. “I think they know you’re every bit as demanding as your father. Every bit as unyielding. And I think if you throw down the whip right now, they’ll also know you’re your own man. That—just like you say—you’ve got nothing to prove to no one.”
There was a pause. Then the whip slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. I was sure I heard a few low whistles escape from the gathered Negroes. After a moment, two men crept tentatively toward the boy and began to untie him.
“Hey, gov’nor,” Pemberton called out. I sensed at once he was talking to me, and I willed myself to show no reaction.
“Yeah, you. I knew it—I’ve seen you before.” Turning to Jacques Roman, Pemberton repeated, louder and with emphasis, “I’ve seen him before. On the river, I seen him.”
I took off in a dead sprint for the woods.